inspiration

Thoughty Thursday: Things that made me go hmmmm on the interwebz, Aug 17-23, 2014

/ Melanie Marttila

I have a feeling that this week might be more along the lines of entertaining rather than thoughty, but we can’t be serious all the time, right?

So have some fun 🙂

Three images that will change the way you think about mental illness. Engage. I like the cartoon myself.

ASAP Science explores the science of depression. Love these videos.

 

ASAP Science mentioned Laurel Braitman in their wee video, so when I saw Laurel’s TED talk on animal madness, I had to share. She’s quite entertaining. I think she might also have a little stage fright.

 

Fond of meteor disaster movies like Armageddon? Well, this graphic shows the comparative size of the comet the Rosetta has been sent after. Just to put things in perspective. IFLS.

All right. This oceanic worm is a little creepy, but it’s also pretty cool. IFLS.

Take a look at this transparent solar concentrator. IFLS.

David Brin talks Next Technologies on his blog, Contrary Brin. Lots of linkage.

Captain America and the Hulk, explained by science (kind of). Polygon.

Kid President’s pep talk for teachers and students. Find your awesome.

 

A young goat is introduced to a litter of puppies. The San Francisco Globe. OMG cute 🙂

P!nk and John Legend in Herbie Hancock’s arrangement of Don’t Give Up. Teh beautiful.

 

Walk off the Earth covers Am I wrong? by Nico & Vinz.

 

Time explores the other roles the 12 Doctors have played over the years.

The Nerdist’s Alicia Lutes wonders why actors in fantasy and science fiction series get the Emmy snub.

So . . . were you edutained? Let me know.

See you Saturday with the next instalment of WWC 2014, and a Caturday quickie about the week’s developments. Things are looking up 😉

Thoughty Thursday

Thoughty Thursday: Things that made me go hmmmm on the interwebz, Aug 10-16, 2014

/ Melanie Marttila / 6 Comments

Of course, the big news of the week was the death of Robin Williams. I loved his work as a comedian and an actor. The circumstances of his death were tragic, but as a friend posted, so was his mental illness, the periodic substance abuse he engaged in throughout his life, and the effect that must have had on his family. The man touched me. He made me laugh. I’ll miss him. I’m just saying.

On that note, IFLS posted this on identifying and overcoming depression.

And my friend Kim wrote this lovely post. Seriously, one of the best I’d read on the subject.

The Globe and Mail’s offering: Thoughts on depression from an artistic mind, by Michael Redhill.

Shaking my head, not so briefly, to evict the maudlin.

This is verging on the Writerly Goodness, but I decided to put Justine Musk’s post, the art of being a heroine, in my Thoughty Thursday curation because it’s not so much about writing as about the intersection of myth and womanhood. Thoughty indeed.

Why we can’t catch our own typos, from Wired. Brain science explains why writers need editors.

Wired features Maryam Mirzakhani, the first woman to win mathematics’ most prestigious prize.

A video love letter to Curiosity from Neil DeGrasse Tyson.

How wolves change rivers. This is amazing. IFLS.

What’s the smallest thing in the universe? IFLS features Talk Nerdy to Me.

The “super moon” of August 10th, as seen from space. IFLS.

The Atlantic featured more photos of the super moon on its In Focus page.

Imogen Heap has to be my favourite musical artist. Just lurve her to pieces. So when CBC music featured her new release Sparks as a “First Play” selection, I had to tune in. I listened to the whole thing in one night. The video is a great look behind the scenes too. Heaven. Of course, Ima buy it too, but I couldn’t resist the awesome.

A couple of great covers from Walk off the Earth. First, Rude, by Magic!

Next up, Say something, by A Great Big World.

Think I got carried away by music this week. Lindsey Stirling, Master of Tides.

And Beyond the Veil. This one caught me, because Fer spends a bit of time there . . . A candidate for the revision soundtrack?

This. Saturday. Can’t. Wait.

And this is fabulous: a fan made his own opening sequence for Doctor Who. Steven Moffatt saw it, and guess what happened? Space.

Thoughty Thursday

Thoughty Thursday: Things that made me go hmmmm on the interwebz, July 27-Aug 2, 2014

/ Melanie Marttila / 4 Comments

Science abounds this week.

Astronomers detect a signal 240 Million light years from Earth. IFLS.

More IFLS: Scientists have solved the mystery of the hole at the world’s end. Remember that article I posted a few weeks ago? Well, here’s the explanation.

ASAP science asks, how much sleep do you need?

 

NASA records ambient space music. That’s what ima call it anyway. I think it’s lovely.

 

Neil deGrasse Tyson refutes GMO fear mongering. Mr. Science says the same. Smart guy, my man 😉

 

Wired’s absurd creature of the week is the Satanic Leaf-Tailed Gecko. Personally, I think he’s beautiful.

Kathryn Schulz says a good life is not so much about regretting nothing, but about forgiving yourself for whatever it is you regret. TED.

Another TED talk, this time by Suzanne Talhouk. The Arabic language is in danger. Cultures around the world are trying to preserve their languages. Suzanne hopes to inspire the Middle East to do the same.

Vivek Wadwha predicts that automation will replace human workers more quickly than we’re prepared to handle. How will the world address this trend and what will we do?

Heading off to When Words Collide very early tomorrow morning. I’m still going to try to blog Saturday and Sunday, but you may have to forgive me if I get caught up in the panels, sessions, and workshops.

In other words, I’ll see you when I see you.

Hang tight, my writerly peeps 🙂

Thoughty Thursday

Thoughty Thursday: things that made me go hmmmm on the interwebz, July 20-26, 2014

/ Melanie Marttila / 2 Comments

I guess this is the week for controversial stuff. PEN Canada, and other charitable organizations who engage in “political” activism are now under investigation by the Canada Revenue Agency.

Here’s a post by Charity Village on the same subject.

The Winnipeg Free Press offers a list of the organizations under investigation.

It’s just disturbing to me that all of these organizations are being audited. It continues the trend of cutbacks, suppression, and outright antagonism toward the sciences, and environmental and arts organizations in this country.

That’s all I’m saying about that.

Carmine Gallo explores the science behind TED’s 18 minute presentation rule. My trainer geek emerged. This is the 90-20-10 rule. People can listen with attention for 90 minutes (think about the timing of your breaks and lunch at work). They can listen and understand for about 20 minutes. The trainer or presenter (in-person) should change things up every 10 minutes. Virtual is a whole different ball game 😉

And speaking of TED, here’s Ze Frank’s very brief, Are You Human?

 

Frances Caballo offers a concise, yet comprehensive guide to Twitter for writers. The Book Designer.

Elizabeth J. Griffin, MD discloses her struggle with depression and what most people don’t understand.

The relationship between creativity and mental illness, on Brainpickings.

One tree has been grafted to bear 40 different kinds of fruit. IFLS. One of my friends commented: It’s experiments like this that lead to Triffids – LOL!

National Geographic explores what animals do in wildfires.

The 100 best sci-fi movies, as chosen by critics and experts. They’re presented in alphabetical groupings and each delivers their top ten. It’s a fair amount of wading, but there are some interesting choices . . .

Balloon art. Seriously. And I can’t even make a poodle. Maybe a snake 😛

And that be it for the thoughty and fun this week.

I’ll check in again on Saturday 🙂

Thoughty Thursday

Thoughty Thursday: Things that made me go hmmmm on the interwebz, July 13-19, 2014

/ Melanie Marttila

First, a big ole THANKEE to everyone who tweeted, retweeted, favourited, or otherwise promoted my Tipsday post. It’s seriously the most twitter action I’ve received from anything I’ve put out there so far. I know, I’m still a minnow in this SoMe sea, but ripples are still being felt. Warm fuzzies!

Now onto the thoughty harvest.

Colbie Caillat’s Try. We are all beautiful just the way we are.

How the brain processes emotions, from PsyBlog.

This has always bugged me. Why do I always seem to choose the slowest line at the checkout? You may be interested to know there’s psychological basis for it. Doesn’t make it any less irritating, but still.

Five things everyone should know about introverts. The mind unleashed.

Fancy a cuppa, guvnor? National Geographic’s Taste of Travel column.

A giant hole appears at the “world’s end.” Where’s Simon Pegg when you need him? 😉

Non-human DNA found in the remains of Otzi the Iceman. IFLS.

Moar IFLS: Friends resemble each other genetically. Just cool.

Nina Muntaneu posts about flying algal ships. This too, c’est cool.

Duke’s last day made me bawl like a baby. So wished we could have done this for our Zoe.

Looking forward to the new season and the new Doctor. How about you?

 

The Nerdist made my day with this LEGO Day of the Doctor.

This is just weird, but I received it Sunday morning from Julie Czerneda. A screaming goat rendition of the Doctor Who theme? Woke me up, SMILING!

Hope strange ideas swirl in your writerly dreams tonight.

Thoughty Thursday

Thoughty Thursday: Things that made me go hmmmm on the interwebz, July 6-12, 2014

/ Melanie Marttila

Reach in this week’s goody bag . . .

Rebecca Brown took a daily selfie over the six years she battled depression. This video is the result. ViralNova.

Interesting article from the Psychiatric Times about our fascination with violence and why even some psychiatrists aren’t immune (well, they’re human, aren’t they?).

Why the internet of things will disrupt everything. Wired. Like this? Then I’d highly recommend the CBC podcast of Spark. Nora Young talks about the internet of things every week 🙂

IFLScience! The earth’s electromagnetic field is weakening. Is it getting ready to “flip”?

Moar IFLScience! Antioxidants make some cancers worse. Is it time for more research?

Discovery News. This hard drive sniffing hound helps fight child porn. Good dog!

Decoding the sign language of chimpanzees. Phys.org

In related news, chimps also like wearing “jewellery.” Daily Mail Online.

Bill Steer, A.K.A. Backroads Bill, looks for evidence of fairies in northern Ontario pictographs. Do you believe? CBC’s Morning North.

Poor dear. Elephant freed after 50 years of servitude. I hate animal cruelty in any form. Diply.

Want a keyboard with a sense on nostalgia? This darling might be for you. Bored Panda.

What did you grab, or rather, what grabbed you?

Just thought of another reason to like Thoughty Thursday: tomorrow’s FRIDAY!!!!!!

Have a good one people. See you Saturday.

Thoughty Thursday

Thoughty Thursday: Things that made me go hmmmm on the interwebz, June 29-July5, 2014

/ Melanie Marttila

Thoughty Thursday

A bunch of good stuff for you this week. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll get edumacated 😉 Have fun *waves*!

The space shuttle program may have ended, but NASA’s still working on new ways of launching us into space. The Atlantic.

Plants can “hear” themselves being eaten. I fucking love science (IFLS). I kinda do, though sometimes it creeps me out.

More IFLS: Your brain on magic mushrooms.

And even more IFLS: Did you know there’s a place on earth that gets struck my lightning 1.2 million times a year?

One more IFLS, just for good measure: These skyscrapers will clean the pollution from the surrounding air and water.

David Gallo’s TED talk about underwater astonishments. The final frontier here on earth.

Treat the classroom, not the kids. ADHD, autism, and other conditions are not more prevalent in children, says Allen Frances in this Psychiatric Times article. The kids might just be misdiagnosed. My favourite quote: “It is shameful that simple immaturity due to being younger is now mislabelled as mental illness and mistreated with a pill.” In other words, being a kid isn’t a mental illness.

Amazing TED talk by George Takei: Why I love a country that once betrayed me.

How many last names started out as nicknames. Cool research for your characters?

St. Patrick was never canonized by the Catholic Church. I did not know this. IrishCentral.

A (mostly) intact 1700s woodworking shop was being used as a shed. Core77.

An old correctional facility not far from Sudbury makes UK news. “A stunning piece of Canadian history.” Could this be the setting for your next ghost story, or post-apocalyptic tale?

For Canada Day, Chris Hadfield and his brother Dave created this lovely song:

 

Doctor Who: 50 years of time travel, an infographic from the BBC.

A periodic table of fictional elements. Remember flubber? Fast Company.

A guy sings, impersonating 29 different celebrities, in one four-minute song. Offbeat.

Animals making puns from FadNation.

How would you like to have a thunderstorm in your house? Colossal.

Ideas.ted.com asks, what are you revealing on line?

What’s your favourite?

 

Thoughty Thursday: Things that made me go hmmmm on the interwebz June 22-28, 2014

/ Melanie Marttila

Another thoughty week runs the gamut from the sublime to the absurd. Just for you, my thoughty friends 🙂

This is from the learning and development side of my life, but, I figured, why not share the love? The social learning blog offers 22 free elearning and graphic design resources.

Author Media created this infographic that gives you ALL the sizes for all images on the most popular social media. Cheat sheet? AWESOME!

New technology for books! Check out the booktrack. Posted by Laurence MacNaughton on Jane Friedman’s blog.

All work and no play makes Johnny . . . crazy? Watch this TED talk and see what you think:

 

Five ways animals suffer from mental illness from ted.ideas.com. Phil and I have always been convinced we raise neurotic pets . . .

From the Telegraph: phobias may be memories passed down in our genes from our ancestors. Whoa, dude.

Brainpickings presents the theology of rest. “Rest, instead of being something passive, is actually an act of resistance.”

Try the Celtic version of the zodiac. The Celtic tree calendar from Irish Central.

A literary travel guide to the UK from ShortList.

Ted.ideas.com asks which country does the most good for the planet?

Six sites gain world heritage site status. Discovery news.

How much room would we need to supply the entire world with solar energy? I Fucking Love Science has the scoop.

Have a closer look at Europa with National Geographic. I love Europa. Wrote a poem about her once 🙂

The Atlantic present more of the entrants in the 2014 National Geographic Traveler Photo Contest.

Love pugs? How about Game of Thrones? A couple of creative souls decided to put the two together and this is what they came up with:

 

HelloGiggles brings us an ode to sloths.

Wired’s absurd creature of the week: the assassin bug. More like creepy creature. Gives me the wiggins.

The truth about public toilet seats from Lifehacker.

And now that you’re suitably grossed out, I shall bid thee adieu!

The best in edutainment. Nothing’s too good for my writerly friends 🙂

Thoughty Thursday

Thoughty Thursday: Things that made me go hmmmm on the interwebz June 15-21, 2014

/ Melanie Marttila / 2 Comments

I think I have to declare this the week of TED. A fair amount of TED talk here. All excellent, as TED talks tend to be.

Just a bit of politics here. The Northern Gateway pipeline is that other pipeline, but it’s a Canadian thing, so some of you may not have heard. Here’s an interesting article about the lies that have been told in an attempt to push the project through.

Kudos to the UK where teaching creationism is now banned in state-run schools. I Fucking Love Science.

A man dedicated to fighting woo: The Huffington Post interviews James Randi (The Amazing Randi).

Just to offer some balance, a post on meditation from one of the woo-pitchers Randi debunks. Actually, I don’t think Randi has an issue with meditation, or its potential benefits, just all the other stuff that tends to get glommed in with it.

More IFLS: How neurons decide whether you cope or become stressed.

TED talk from David Anderson: Your brain is more than a bag of chemicals.

And related, from the Wall Street Journal: Our brains are made for enjoying art.

A TED talk from Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi on the secret of happiness, flow.

Another TED talk from Steven Johnson: Where good ideas come from.

TED talk from Colin Stokes. What are today’s movies teaching our kids? This kind of goes with the article on strong female characters from this past Tipsday. Hint strong doesn’t equal pew-pew-pew!

Jim C. Hines responds to a blog post entitled “The naive idiocy of teaching rapists not to rape.” Read to get the goods.

An interesting article from Irish Central on the black Irish and their history.

Entertainment Weekly interviews David Benioff and Dan Weiss about the season 4 finale of Game of Thrones.

And Maisie Williams on her character, Arya.

One of my favourite pair of singer/songwriters: Dala 🙂

 

And just for laughs: What do you Poupon?

It was a fairly thoughty week! Enjoy, my friends 🙂

Thoughty Thursday

Thoughty Thursday: Things that made me go hmmmm on the interwebz June 8-14, 2014

/ Melanie Marttila

Right now, I’m down in Orillia, Ontario, attending CanWrite! 2014. Started the day with a light breakfast and yoga, and I’m going to get Thoughty Thursday out before the sessions start up after lunch. Life is good.

Dame Judy Dench and Daniel Craig explore the question: Are we truly equal? See what you think . . .

What’s new in the war on Alzheimer’s Disease? from the Psychiatric Times.

Why we need creative confidence from Ideas.TED.com.

The quest to understand consciousness, a TED talk by Antonio Damasio.

Let these stunning photos of incredible storms inspire you. Also from Ideas.TED.com.

More inspirational ideas from i09: 12 futuristic forms of government that could one day rule the world.

All our patent are belong to you (did you catch the pop culture reference?). Tesla Motors makes its patents open source.

The most important sci-fi film never made from the Japan Times. Jodorowsky’s vision of Dune launched the careers of several notables in the field, including Geiger, and influenced moviemaking to the current day. I really want to see this documentary now.

Wired’s absurd creature of the week: the lion’s mane jellyfish. When I visited the Vancouver Aquarium last fall, they were featuring jellyfish. Apparently, they really do like global warming.

This week was pretty thoughty 🙂

Enjoy, my writerly friends, and I hope you garner some inspiration for your writing from this crop of curation.

Thoughty Thursday